On June 29, 1944, the Red Army captured Bobruisk, killing over 20,000 German soldiers. The fighting is part of Operation Bagration. This is the code name of the Belarusian strategic offensive operation conducted by the Red Army in the period of June 22 – August 19, 1944. This is one of the largest military operations in the history of mankind. It is named in honor of the Georgian prince and Russian general who became famous in the Franco-Russian “Patriotic” War of 1812, General Pyotr Bagration, mortally wounded in the Battle of Borodino.
The Bobruisk operation began on 23 June against the 9th Army on the southern flank of the First Belorussian Front, but Russian forces suffered heavy losses before breaking through the German defenses. Rokossovsky ordered additional artillery preparation and air bombardment, and launched new attacks the next day. The 3rd Army broke through on the northern sector, trapping the German 35th Corps on the banks of the Berezina. The Soviet 65th Army broke south through the German 41st Corps and by 27 June both German corps were completely surrounded east of Bobruisk under constant aerial bombardment. Some elements of the 9th Army managed to withdraw from the sack at Bobruisk, but about 70,000 German soldiers were killed and captured. Bobruisk was liberated on June 29 after heavy street fighting by the First Belorussian Front.
In the course of the long offensive, the German troops were pushed out of Belarus and the German army group "Center" was almost completely defeated. and three of its component armies – 4th Army, 3rd Panzer and 9th Army.
The preliminary stage of the operation "Bagration" symbolically begins on the third anniversary of the German attack on the USSR. Entire armies were sacrificed by the Wehrmacht as Hitler forbade any retreat. These were Germany's biggest losses in a single operation in the entire Second World War, and it failed to make up for them. Towards the end of the operation, the German troops were completely pushed out of the pre-war Soviet territory and the Red Army took control of bridgeheads in Poland, East Prussia and Czechoslovakia.
The strategic objectives of the operation, together with the Lviv-Sandomir offensive operation that began a little later in Ukraine, included the defeat of the German troops in the central direction, a deep breakthrough in the operational and strategic zone of the Wehrmacht's defense and the occupation of the bridgehead on the Vistula River in Poland, thus putting Berlin within striking range of the Red Army in the next major offensive – The Vistula-Oder operation.